Progressive Notes: Houston School Board Member’s Hate Mail Spurs Grassroots into Action

Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

There is a major political story exploding here in Houston Texas.

I’ve been involved with a school board campaign for Ramiro Fonseca, a well respected member of the Latino community who heads the Hispanic Forum. He challenged the incumbent Houston ISD Trustee Manuel Rodriguez in a very tough race. Rodriguez does not support union rights, prompting all of labor, our Mayor Annise Parker, state house members and others to back Ramiro.

On Thursday November 4th I got, from someone in the district the race was playing out in, a pdf file of a horrid mailer Rodriguez sent out. This mailer was abhorrent and you can see it here . It made Ramiro Fonseca sound like he was not normal and worse simply because he is gay.

It was the worst attack I have seen in Houston politics, and we are very open caring city with a openly gay mayor. Something had to be done, so the GLBT Caucus came out and condemned the ad. I felt it needed media coverage ASAP as the election would be Tuesday November 8th. So I called KHOU, a CBS station, November 6th. And presto, the KHOU reporter was at my home in an hour, had interviewed me and the president of the GLBT Caucus and it was the lead news story that night.

Here is KHOU’s breaking report on November 6th, Sunday.

Making matters more complex was that the Houston Chronicle in mid October endorsed Trustee Rodriguez. So we needed the Chronicle to retract it’s endorsement before Election Day. And thanks to many emails from progressives, along with the KHOU story, the Chronicle did something unprecedented: it retracted their endorsement and shredded Trustee Rodriguez’s bigoted actions. The editorial noted that:

The flier further states that Fonseca has “spent years advocating for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender rights … not kids,” and winds up with a pair of bullet points noting that he’s 54 years old with no children and has a male partner.

That’s obvious gay-bashing, of the kind that HISD rightly prohibits on the playground. It has no place on HISD’s board.

Advocating for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights is advocating for kids. GLBT kids are among those who most need adult protection and support.

As Noel Freeman, president of the Houston GLBT Caucus notes, “GLBT youth are 12 times more likely to be bullied in schools, five times more likely to commit suicide and eight times more likely to be homeless. It is imperative that we provide a safe, welcoming environment in our schools.”

With his hateful flier, Rodriguez perpetuates the kind of stereotypes that put our kids in danger.

Read it in fullhere.

Although the Chronicle pulled it’s endorsement the day prior to the election, it sadly was not enough to stave a loss for challenger Fonseca. On Election Day, November 8th, Fonseca won the vote total. But in the early vote, before the mailer went out, Trustee Rodriguez got more votes. So sadly Fonseca LOST BY 24 VOTES. 24. And your vote doesn’t matter?

So here we are in a struggle to have justice. The HISD board approved months ago a sweeping anti-bully policy to help protect GLBT students and others. Yet here we have a board member attacking a member of the community because of what he happens to be?

This behavior by the vice president and sitting trustee of the HISD board is abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. I, and many others, have called for his resignation. Of course the trustee won’t resign, but many of us have been and will continue to pressure the school district on the matter.

Hopefully there will be more for me to report in terms of action. Dozens of Houstonians did show up, including myself, at the HISD November 10th board meeting. Why? To protest Trustee Rodriguez’s unacceptable behavior, and the message it sends for this bully who espouses bigotry, to remain on the board with no punishment.

Protestors organized and some 30 showed up, making the 10pm news, and I, among many other students, parents and teachers, addressed the board on t he shame it is to have this man sit on it and the need for him to step down or somehow be removed. In a op-ed I wrote this week, I recalled a stirring moment from the meeting. The setting was a record 350 citizens crammed into the board room with this issue popping up every 15 minutes :

A Milby High School student asked HISD Trustee Rodriguez: “Are you going to help us stop the bullying or are you going to be a bully yourself?” Parents tearfully expressed their shame and fury over this matter and asked for the trustee to resign or be removed. By meetings end some attendees became emotionally overwhelmed and were uncontrollably crying for the pain this board member’s actions had inflicted on them, their families and neighbors.

You can read the full op-ed here .

Also you can read more about the protests at the board meeting here, and ABC KTRK’s report here.

And yes, Trustee Rodriguez did “apologize” the day after the election. it did not go over well as his apology was never sent to Ramiro, nor to the GLBT Caucus. And it was half hearted at best. See the letter and reaction here.

Special thanks to Texas Watchdog who was on this story first and did great articles, interviewing all parties. Some jaw dropping comments from the trustee on the mailer as well. Oh things like this:

“It’s the truth,” Rodriguez said during a phone interview, adding that he is not anti-gay. “I am not bashing gay people.”

Uh, yeah right. This board member thinks he can get away with his actions. He is wrong.

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